


Big Happy Family

by imkerfuffled



Series: 62 Things The Avengers Are Not Allowed To Do [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Set before winter soldier, Skippy's List, Somehow manages to have spoilers for both ws and aou, Spoilers and ocs are all in ch2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>10. Agent Coulson’s name isn’t “Mom.”<br/>11. Director Fury should never again be addressed as “Dad”<br/>12. Agent Hill is not the Avenger’s wicked stepmother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 10. Agent Coulson’s name isn’t “Mom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally following up on the stuff in Blackmail. (And more Hawkeye pranking shenanigans!)

Everything was fine until Hawkeye fell off a building again. Normally when he did these things there was a car parked helpfully right beneath him (which happened so often that Tony made a special expense category in the Avengers budget for ‘cars Clint falls on top of’). But this time the car reversed at just the wrong moment, and Clint landed on hard concrete instead. 

So now he was in SHIELD’s hospital facility tormenting the nurses every time he tried to escape. But that wasn’t the real problem. 

No, the real problem began when he finally gave in and let them put him on morphine. Clint was usually the stubborn sort who refused painkillers unless he absolutely needed them, but when he _was_ put on drugs, he got… extraordinarily loopy. Natasha still had videos from the last time he got hurt and tried to make out with the IV pole. 

This time he didn’t do anything nearly so embarrassing, but as per Avengers norm, everything got blown way out of proportion when Tony got involved. 

Clint called Coulson, ‘Mom.’ 

It was hardly worse than accidentally calling a teacher Mom. Coulson had shown up in Clint’s room to check on him, and Clint had slurred, “Aw, thanks Mom.” Coulson had laughed, Natasha had laughed, and that would have been the end of it, if Natasha hadn’t shown the video she’d taken on her phone to the rest of the Avengers. 

Tony immediately saved a copy of it to his computer, Steve and Nat teamed up to mercilessly tease Clint, and the others had a good laugh over it, but before long things went back to normal. 

Until about three weeks later, Coulson called the Avengers in to help his team deal with a gang of superhumans they’d encountered in New York. After the battle was over, and Coulson thanked them for their help, Tony replied with, “No problem, Agent Mom.” 

Which of course made Fitzsimmons laugh, Ward roll his eyes, May give a slight twitch of her mouth that passed for a smile, and Skye instantly drop the A.C. nickname in favor of Agent Mom. By the end of the day, she’d gotten Fitz and Simmons on board with it. Ward took a little more convincing, but eventually she did get him to say it. Once. Ironically. Three days later. 

Picking up on the trend he’d started, Tony refused to call Coulson anything other than Agent Mom, or similar variations, and would act confused when anyone called him Coulson. Clint and Natasha took no convincing to play along, and Steve only pretended to fight it before grudgingly giving in. Bruce was won over by bribes of fancy new science toys that he knew Tony would have given him anyway. Thor thought it was fun, so he hopped on board as well, telling tales (somehow any story told by Thor became a tale, and to call it anything else just felt weird) of a time when he and Sif pretended Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg were all different members of the Warriors Three for a day. 

And then Tony brought it to the rest of SHIELD. He began referring to Coulson as Agent Mom in mission briefings and conversations with other agents. Before long, he had half of SHIELD (at least, half the people who knew he was alive) calling him that. Victoria Hand flat out refused to, and threatened to kick Tony out of the briefing room when he brought it up. 

When Agent May said, “Calm down, Agent Mom,” in response to Coulson fussing over his Captain America merchandise on a particularly turbulent flight, everyone knew there was no hope of this ever going away. 

Coulson, for his part, didn’t mind the nickname. In fact, he often laughed when people said it, but some others found it annoying. Surprisingly enough, Fury wasn’t one of them. He didn’t give a damn what people called his agents, so long as it wasn’t ‘incompetent.’ Or ‘Rainbow Sprinkles.’ 

Until suddenly, he did.


	2. 11. Director Fury should never again be addressed as “Dad”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This began as Clint tricking a gullible young agent into calling Fury Dad, and it somehow turned into a backdoor pilot for a winter soldier tie-in. Because apparently if I manage to write a story with only one Hawkeye, I have to include pre-ws hydra shenanigans instead. One day I’m going to write a story where Clint and Kate team up to fight undercover hydra/shield people, and I’ll somehow manage to make it canon compliant.
> 
> Also, this fic references a couple others in this series. Blackmail explains the Rainbow Sprinkles incident, but you definitely don’t need to read that to understand anything. New Recruits is where I introduce Saki and Dennis, which is a bit more important, but still not necessary to read. Basically, they’re young shield agents that Clint plays another prank on. They gained a little more sense in the meantime, ~~because they were meant as throwaway characters~~ since they’ve had more experience as agents. (And just for shits and giggles, I’m imagining this in the same universe as Six Impossible Things too)

This one really was Clint’s fault, though later he blamed it on Tony, after first trying to claim no affiliation with the matter.

“Hey,” he asked Natasha one Saturday morning at the farm, as he showed Cooper the correct way to hold a suction cup bow. “If Coulson is Mom, who’s Dad?”

“Hmmm. Good question—no no, let your shoulders relax, and _then_ aim,” Natasha replied, gently pushing Lila’s shoulders down so they didn’t touch her ears, as the little girl pointed a water gun at Clint’s back.

“I mean, if we’re just talking about Coulson’s team—whoa, little bro—if we’re just talking about his team, I’d say May’s the dad,” Clint said, having to hop out of the way when Cooper’s arrow swung towards Clint’s knee.

“Definitely,” Natasha silently positioned Lila’s fingers in the right places on her gun’s grip, “She loved Dad jokes, back in the day.”

Cooper lowered his bow, almost shot himself in the foot, and looked up at Clint. “But aren’t you Dad?” he asked.

“Sure am, kiddo,” Clint snatched up the wandering arrow before something bad happened. He’d learned the hard way that plastic toy weapons could still lead to disaster. “I’m talking about a different dad.”

“Oh,” Cooper nodded sagely, “Your dad?”

“Er… Yeah, sorta.”

“I thought your dad was a meany-head.” Clint chuckled and scooped Cooper up onto his shoulders, “Yeah, he was a meany-head. But this one’s a… _different_ different dad.”

“Okay,” Cooper nodded again, “One of my friends at school has two dads.”

Clint laughed at the thought of what his father would think of _that_ insinuation. Finally, he turned around to face Nat. “But, just for general dad-ness, who d’you think—?”

“Attaaaaack!” Nat yelled.

Before either of them could react, the boys got a face-full of water gun jet.

.........

Again, Clint crushing defeat at the hands of a child with a water pistol (admittedly, she was a child with a water pistol _and_ an expert trainer) should have been the end of it. But it got Clint to thinking…

* * *

 

By now, the older agents were all well acquainted with Clint’s tendency to bribe people into doing and/or believing silly things. Notable examples include the Rainbow Sprinkles Incident, the time he made everyone think he and Nat had run afoul of a body swapping ray gun, and the time he convinced Sitwell to replace all the cafeteria food orders with Papa John’s pizza. Everyone who’d been an agent for more than a few moths knew better than to listen to Clint when he got ideas like that, and one of the first things told to new agents was, “If Hawkeye offers you anything, be it food, money, or freedom from blackmail, don’t pay any attention to him, and report it to somebody immediately. He doesn’t actually have blackmail. Or money. He probably does have food.”

Fortunately for Clint, this message sometimes missed a few new recruits.

He was taking a coffee break (i.e. hiding from a physical exam) when two junior agents walked into the break room. One was a young Asian lady with stylish glasses, and the other a tall, gangly white guy, and they whispered conspiratorially together as they stood in front of the vending machine. Clint paid no attention to them after giving a friendly head nod and receiving waves in return. He just sat on the counter, sipping his coffee and idly trying to remember where he’d seen them before. Probably just in passing around the building.

Then the white guy said something that sounded like, “I’ve gotta, he’s so furry.”

Clint thought they were talking about dogs, so suddenly their conversation became much more interesting.

“Oh my god,” the other agent whispered in a high-pitched voice, “Why? What did you do?”

“I have no idea!” White Guy replied, “Murphy just told me he wanted to speak with me.”

Clint got the sneaking suspicion they weren’t talking about dogs.

“Do you think you’re in trouble?”

“I don’t know!”

Definitely not dogs.

“Hey,” Clint slid off the counter, “You talking ‘bout Fury?”

The two young agents froze, staring at him with wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights looks. Suddenly, Clint remembered where he’d seen them before: this very room, weeks earlier when he tricked them into thinking Natasha could fire them (and royally ticked off Agent Murphy in the process). White Guy and Asian Lady were Manly Voice and Squeaky of the three he’d messed with then.

Clint got the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

“Er… Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” said Squeaky/Asian Lady.

“So, um, I feel like we kinda got off to a bad start, what with the whole thing with Nat,” Clint said sheepishly, “I was just messing with you. No harm meant. Honest.”

“You made us think Black Widow was going to kidnap us,” Manly Voice/White Guy pointed out.

“And possibly murder us,” added Squeaky.

“Maybe not murder.”

“Possibly.”

“Er…” Clint stared intently at the floor tiles and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I still think there was something fishy about that whole thing,” said Squeaky.

“Um… yeah, well,” Clint decided now was a good time to bail on this conversation track, “What do you say we put the past behind us and start over? Hi, I’m Clint.”

“We know. I’m Saki Dumont,” Squeaky introduced herself.

“Dennis O’Leary,” said Manly Voice.

“Hi Saki. Hi Dennis,” Clint flashed them a friendly, non-threatening and/or scheming grin, “So, what’s this I hear about seeing Fury?”

Squeaky—Saki—and Dennis exchanged nervous glances, as though wondering whether they were allowed to tell him.

“I’m level seven,” Clint said, “So if you’re worried about compartmentalized security and stuff, it’s probably okay to tell me. You guys are, what, level two?”

“Three,” Dennis corrected him with a small flash of pride.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine. And if you get in trouble, you can just blame it on me,” Clint waved it off, “So why does our esteemed director want to talk with a baby—I mean junior—junior agent like yourself?”

After another moment of hesitation, Dennis admitted, “I have no clue.”

“Hmmm,” Clint’s head bobbed absentmindedly as he considered the young man’s dilemma, “Well, I don’t think you should worry too much about being in trouble. If it was bad enough that _Fury_ had to chew you out for it, you’d definitely know what you did. Trust me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And don’t let his scary, super spy-soldier-pirate thing freak you out. He’s really a big softy at heart,” Clint said. When Dennis and Saki failed to look reassured, or even convinced Clint was telling the truth, he continued, “Honest! You should see him around babies. It’s adorable.”

Actually, it was terrifyingly domestic, and both Clint and Laura had half expected him to reveal the baby was a secret spycam disguised as an LMD for an undercover mission, even though A) the baby was Clint’s own, and he knew for a fact Cooper was not a spycam, and B) Fury would never willingly go undercover with a baby. But they didn’t need to know any of that.

Speaking of which, they were still staring at him like he was crazy.

“I’m not joking, I swear!” Clint insisted, “There was a baby, and Fury made cooing noises and colored with crayons, and I thought he’d been abducted and replaced by an alien.”

Saki’s eyes shot wide open in terror.

“But, there aren’t any aliens on earth right now, so that would be impossible, right?” Clint threw his arms out in a desperate ‘I’m joking. Haha, that was a joke’ gesture. “But I’m serious about Fury. He cares. Secretly. Really, really deep down in his heart. If you get to know him. He’s… You know, he’s Fury. He can be scary, but unless you’re a bad guy, he’s not actually gonna do anything to you.”

Dennis cracked a tiny, nervous smile at Clint to show his words were getting through to him.

“Actually, he’s kind of like,” Clint said, the gears in his mind whirring, “He’s kind of like SHIELD’s dad. The tough love kind of dad who’s hard on his kids, but only ‘cause he’s trying to make them better. You know what I mean? He’s SHIELD’s dad!”

Dennis nodded, and his watery smile became slightly less watery.

“In fact,” Clint’s grin widened, “I dare you to call him that.”

“No way,” The watery smile instantly became a steely glare.

“I’ll get you Avengers autographs?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ll show you how to get free, unlimited chips from the vending machine?”

“No.”

* * *

 

Dennis crept into Director Fury’s office with every nerve in his body quivering on edge. At his desk at the far end of the room, Fury sat reading something on a computer screen. He motioned for Dennis to sit in an imposing-looking chair opposite the desk.

“You’re…” Fury squinted at the screen, “Dennis O’Leary?”

“Yes sir,” Dennis said, nearly tripping into the chair.

Finally, Fury looked up from his computer. Dennis tried not to stare at the eye patch, wondered if obvious avoidance would be considered more offensive, and instead stared at his own hands clenched in his lap.

“You’re not in trouble, kid,” the director said. Maybe it was just Dennis’ imagination, and Clint’s words coloring his perception, but he could swear there was a (tiny, very tiny) softer edge to Fury’s voice now that he’d seen how badly Dennis was shaking. “I just wanted to talk to you about your recent work with your supervising officer, Agent Murphy.”

Dennis gulped.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad. In fact,” Fury clicked something on his computer, “You’ve shown an exceptional talent for both sharpshooting and hand-to-hand combat. And that’s by my standard of exceptional.”

He paused as if expecting Dennis to say something, but the young agent’s throat felt too tight to work.

“I can use that,” Fury continued, “I’m putting together a special team that needs someone with your skills on it. If you accept, you’ll be sent out into the field with four or five other specialists. You’ll be tracking intel mostly—gathering information that you’ll report directly to Agent Hill. And this is all top secret mind you, so nothing we say can leave this room. But Murphy wouldn’t have recommended you if she didn’t think you were trustworthy. So what do you say? Are you interested?”

Dennis blinked.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Fury assured him, “I just need to know if it’s a possibility before I give you more classified details.”

“I…” Dennis stammered, “Yes! Yes, of course. Thank you, I—”

“Don’t thank me, kid. You earned it.”

For the next ten minutes, Fury told him the story of a team in the works that would be classified to the highest extreme. No one could know of its existence save Fury, Hill, and the members themselves. They could have no affiliation with SHIELD in the field; if anyone got captured, they couldn’t expect a rescue. They’d be working alone, with no backup.

And the purpose?

“In the past few years, there’ve been stirrings on the grapevine that… an old threat is coming out of the woodworks,” Fury explained, “Hints, whispers, nothing concrete enough to go on. We don’t know where they are, what they’re doing, or how powerful they are. But they’re out there, and we’ve got to find them before they become a serious threat. So that’s where this team will come in.”

“But…” Dennis said, “Why send me, sir? I’m still new. Why not send Hawkeye, or Black Widow, or Mockingbird?”

“Because you just called them Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Mockingbird,” Fury said cryptically, “They’ve made names for themselves. Everyone knows they work for SHIELD. I need people no one’s ever heard of, which unfortunately crosses off a lot of my best agents.”

“So we’re the B team?”

“No, you’re the team I _need_ for this mission. If you think you’re up for it.”

Dennis only hesitated a moment before he said, “Absolutely.”

“Good,” Fury leaned back in his chair, “You’ll report to Briefing Room D at eight, Monday morning for the full story. Good luck, kid.”

His tone of voice indicated a dismissal, and Dennis stood up to leave. When he got to the door, however, he paused.

“I’m definitely on the team, sir?” he asked over his shoulder, “Nothing can change that?”

“Not unless you die between now and Monday. Or if you’re a Hydra spy,” Fury narrowed his eyes and growled, “You’re not a Hydra spy, are you?”

“No sir,” Dennis shook his head emphatically.

“That all you wanted to know?”

“Yes sir,” the young agent seemed to puff up, as if steeling himself for something. “Thanks, Dad.”

The door shut behind him.

For a second, Fury simply stared at the door. He blinked once.

“You son of a bitch, Barton,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just, like, pretend Fury’s found rumors of hydra returning, but has no idea yet that it’s within shield, so his team is trying to find out wtf is going on with them. Then ws happens before they can figure stuff out.


	3. 12. Agent Hill is not the Avenger’s wicked stepmother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter this time, after that weird thing that was the last chapter

“So,” Clint asked Tony one day, after the sting of being shouted at by Fury had worn off some, “If Coulson is Mom, and Fury is Not-Dad, then who’s Hill?” 

The two of them and Natasha were lounging against the wall of Tony’s Helicarrier lab, watching with amused detachment while Steve commandeered a Starkpad to battle trolls on the internet, egged on by an overly enthusiastic Thor. Bruce hovered over their shoulders, as the one voice of reason in the room. 

“Hmmm,” Natasha mused, “Deputy Dad?” 

“Nah,” said Clint, “Sounds like a bad attempt at a superhero name.” 

“Yeah, because ‘Hawkeye’ is so much better,” Tony said. 

“Hey, your suit’s not even _made_ of iron.” 

_“You_ got your name from a football team!” 

“I did not!” 

“Stepmom,” Natasha interrupted. They both turned to stare at her. “She could be the stepmom.” She shrugged. 

“Yeah, like in fairytales,” Tony nodded once he figured out what she was talking about, “She’s the wicked stepmother.” 

“Hey, what’ve you got against Maria?” Clint shouted. 

“Nothing! She’s just so _robotic_ ,” Tony said, “It’s like, Jesus, woman, loosen up!” 

Unnoticed by either of them, Natasha’s eyes suddenly widened slightly as they became fixed on the door. 

“That’s only at work, where she has to be professional,” Clint protested, “If you’d actually have a _conversation_ with her, instead of just a mission briefing—” 

“Um…” Natasha said. 

“Fine, okay,” Tony held up his hands in defeat, “She’s the _non_ -evil stepmother who married Dad after Mom died.” 

“Well now I have _so_ many questions to ask Fury—” 

“Um, guys!” 

Prompted by Natasha’s nudging, both men swung around to face the door. 

“Hello,” said Maria Hill, non-evil stepmother of the Avengers and current carrier of contracts for one of Tony’s projects. 

“Aw, _futz.”_


End file.
